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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (March 29, 1900)
8 The Conservative * AN APPEAL. Columbia stands at the White House door More worried and anxious than over before ; She always comes down from her station on high When the time for another election draws nigh And watches and waits and would gladly be heard If the people would list to a rational word. She calls to Republicans : "in your wide range Is ample material for a full change ; There is no time to bo lost ; you've constantly blundered. The people are cheated , insulted and plun dered ! It is 'right-about-face' , drop your ill-gotten gains Or you'll have only ruin and shame for your pains ; You must hunt up n man at once honest end bravo Who from 'bosses' the country is able to save. I want some one wise , and with principles sound , I don't want a man with his car to the ground , Who whittles and turns on the slightest pre text , Who's 'high tariff' one day and 'free trade' the next ; I don't want a man always ready to pray And equally ready to rob and to slay ; Nor a man who by hook or by crook plays the tyrant , Seeming willing to bo for a crown an aspirant There are men enough still of the Washington kind , You can easily flnd them unless you are blind ; And I warn you , unless you are prudent and quick You'll go up like a rocket and down like a stick ! " She calls to the Democrats : "have you no man In time of such danger to place in the van , A patriot honest in things great and small , Who quietly waits for the nation to call , Who's fitted by knowledge , experience , tact , To suggest and advise , and is ready to act ? Oh , there are such , I know them , and you know them too , For popular favor they never will sue. They are there in their homes , they don't wan der about And make themselves cheap for a crowd and a shout ; Don't you see ? Don't you know ? The Repub lic's on trial ; Hero's no room for skepticism , doubt , or de nial , 'Tis for yon the betrayed constitution to save , Or your hopes must bo buried in Liberty's graveI" Feb. , 1000. EMZAUUTII E. EVANS. THE ETHICS IN THE I.IQUOR QUES TION. "Might is right. " That which the builders rejected is the corner Btoue of the Temple of Cosmic Ethics. Mr. Darwin's profound law , "the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence , " may be compared to a napkin in which is enclosed that stone of the wise which all have sought and none found. Let us open the napkin ! "The survival of the fittest" is dependant on the most profound of all conditions. That which makes the fittest survive is far more fundamental than the survival. The surviving factor is the might innate to the surviving fit. Might is right b. Might is the key-stone to the Ethical Arch without which all moral super structures are but card-houses. They topple over as unfit in the ethical strug gle for existence. When might is not right the survival of the fittest will cease to bo law. Non-surviving weakness will then be the greatest of moral virtues. Force will no longer be all- oervadiug when might is not the ethical ) ost. Fittest has not only a connotation of best ; fittest is the best. Better than fittest is impossible. Strange so many show their unfitness by denying this. False prophets ! Writers on ethics and ethnologists generally deny the possi bility of ethics in the cosmos. Blind coders ! Even Mr. Spencer sadly an nounces that his search for an ethical basis in evolution left him high and dry on the shifting sands of uncertainty. The Natural Hauls of Ethics. If it is true that there is no scientific basis for ethics , no foundation for morality , in the cosmos , then all our fforts ore in vain. Individually and socially man is an ethical and moral failure. Ho stands on a vacuum liable to collapse at any moment. The end is anarchy. Although it must be admitted ; hat social movements have most marked ouarchistic tendencies , he who knows the cosmos , the student at the Delphic oracle , is aware that subjection to the law is the universal manifestation of cosmic might. Anarchy is doomed. Its prophets are ravening wolves driven to madness by their gross misconcep tions. The might to know and fulfill the law marketh the fittest to survive. The prevailing moral anarchy is of ab sorbing interest. Theoretically , the race is without a moral governor or compass. Instinctively the race is ethi cal in its tendencies in spite of its intellectual misconceptions as to its moral course. The fittest are mightiest. They alone survive. The fittest is in variably true. Truth and best are identical. Truth is mightiest. An ancient declared that : "The pathway of truth is imperceptible. " Its progress is only apparently slow. It never falters. The torch-bearer often falters. A paradox Truth is invulnerable ; truth is the fittest , yet the torch-bearer of truth often perishes as unfit. Because of their weakness the torch-bearers of truth fall among the unfit. Man's Ethical Nature. A great writer , one of the greatest of the world's ethnologists , devotes a chap- ter to show that man has no ethical nature ; that morality stands on a vacuum and has no foundation ; that all man's so-called moral principles are but the result of make-shift empiricism. Such conclusions are superficial. They are immoral. They are based on insnffi- cient observation. One might say "the prejudice of ignorance" and not depart from the pathway of truth. These un ethical misconceptions find their origin in the apparently uuravelablo hetero- geneity and contradictions in the moral jheories and actions of the same people at different periods of their existence and in different people in different parts of the world during the saino chrono- ogical era. Slavery was once almost universal. One-half of the people of the United States considered it a virtue and the other half a vice. Once slavery was a jreat ethical institution. It was a pro- bund advance from slaughtering all vanquished males often women and children also to permitting them to ive as slaves. There was nothing inmauitnriau in the act. The victor did it for self-benefit. It was not until a conquering nation had become rich and developed some culture , that it advanced from slaughtering the van quished to enslaving them. Morality is a saving virtue. Mercy prevails when it pays. Never otherwise ! The ethical difficulty is that the majority are too ignorant to know when it pays to be merciful. Ignorance and indifference are twins. Toleration born of reason is ethical. The toleration of indifference is bastard. Polygamy was once general. When it ceased to pay monogamy became a virtue. In Utah polygamy is ethical. In other parts of the country "Vielweiberei" ( promiscuity ) is fashion- ablo. The one is said to be a bar to congressional honors. Nothing is said about the other. A severe struggle for existence is antagonistic to polygamy and favorable to Vielweiberei ( promis cuity. ) The struggle for existence forces it as an inevitable necessity on females. Males profit thereby. Stealing is vir tuous at one time and place. It is criminal under other conditions. It is robbery for the common man to steal but the community that condemns the private thief honors the disreputable politician with reelection. Murder is a crime in the individual , but when a nation enters on an entirely causeless slaughter of its own people , it becomes a virtue. Only statesmen can account for that freakof intellectual prestidigitation. Once everybody drank liquor males especially. He was the best man who could drink everyone else into a blind stupor. Many localities honor such a man. "He has the best head amongst us" is no uncommon expression. The "four bottle man" has far more respect than the man with four times his intel lect. Many a college youth venerates the "hardest head in the class" far beyond the valedictorian. King Alcohol has his devoted and heroic followers. Bravadoes should have been said. Think of the self-sacrifice of the votaries to royal Bacchus ; The Immorality of Hedonism. Is it any wonder that it should be asserted there is no ethical foundation , no common ground , on which to develop a uniform morality ? "Seek and y.e shall find ! " There is such. The I
